Department of Psychological Science
University of Mary Washington
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The topic of this study was very relevant and very interesting to read about. Looking at how we view avatars and how we rate their agreeableness and competence levels can be important to many aspects of life. Another interesting thing to look at this would be having the participants create an avatar that they think represents agreeable to competent and comparing the similarities between participants.
Hi, Kiara! Thank you for looking at our project. I think that having participants create avatars would be a great way to address some of the limitations of our study, especially in regard to our conceptualization of a feminine appearance. Your suggestion would make for an interesting experiment to conduct and oversee in an in-person research setting.
Nice job! I like your topic as I agree that it is even more relevant today with so many things being online. These findings are certainly something to be aware of as they can affect so many of us. I would also be curious how people’s perceptions of the avatars of others or the ones they choose for themselves vary based on the context for which the avatar is being used.
Great job on your research project. I also think that this is an important topic with so many people being online nowadays. I was surprised to learn that smiling increases the perception of a person’s agreeableness.
Hi Sydney, Tenyia, and Katie. Interesting topic given the increased use of avatars today. In your talk you indicate participants looked at the avatar for 60 seconds. What information were they given during that time? Just whether the avatar represented a student or teacher? Or was there more info? Also, you present a lot of interesting research at the beginning regarding how we tend to judge people based on appearance. Is this research based on judges who identify as male or female? I ask because your participants were only females so I am wondering if that previous research applies and how you think your results might (or might not) have been different if you had males in your study.
Hi Dr. Kolar,
In the 60 second timeframe, the participants were only looking at the features of the avatar without any written description. Just prior to viewing the avatar, the participants read a statement that they would be looking at a profile picture belonging to either a professor or a student on Canvas (with the conditions randomly assigned). This part was not timed. It may be interesting to add more detailed descriptions of the avatars in future studies.
The research that we went over at the beginning of the presentation focused on both male and female judges. However, there was one study (Damhorst & Reed, 1986) in which only male judges evaluated aspects of a woman’s attire to have a significant impact on that woman’s hireability. This makes me wonder if male participants would have perceived the female avatars differently based on attire. I would be very interested to know how our results would have differed if we had included men in our study. Based on the existing literature, I think that attire would have been a stronger factor in male participants’ judgments than in female participants’ judgments. I think that including male participants might have lowered the p values for the effects of attire, but I don’t know if it would have made the results significant. This is because I think that the differences between the attire conditions (from the ‘traditionally feminine’ dress to the ‘gender-neutral’ outfit) were not as pronounced as my group and I had hoped.
Thank you for watching our presentation!
Sure! And thank you thinking about my questions and responding to them.
Great presentation! It’s fairly well known that women need to smile a lot in order to be perceived as agreeable, but I’m surprised that it translates to avatars as well. You make a good point about the participants being fairly homogeneous. I wonder how the results would have looked had you used women in the working world as opposed to current students. I’m also interested to see how men would perceive the avatars as opposed to how women did. Great job!
Those would be great areas for future research. I wonder if there would be more varied perceptions of competence based on attire and facial expression in participants in working/professional settings. I would think, however, that using an avatar as a profile picture would not be well-received or accepted in many of these environments. I’d be curious to know if describing the avatar as a representation of a professor or a student on Canvas negatively impacted participants’ judgments of the woman’s competence in all avatar conditions. This crossed my mind because the usage of these types of avatars in (somewhat) professional settings is still relatively new and not necessarily commonplace. Thank you, Renee!
This is such an interesting study! What do you think are the implications of this kind of research? For example, if it’s true that women who have avatars with neutral expressions (or crossed arms) are perceived to be less agreeable, how should that finding inform women’s avatar selection, the ways that women process their reactions to other women’s avatars, etc.?
Hi, Dr. Palmwood!
Doing this project has changed the way that I view my own Snapchat avatar, and I now feel more inclined to select and maintain the ‘smiling’ expression/pose to present in a more friendly and welcoming manner. One of the reasons why I was drawn to this topic is because I have seen many educators use Snapchat avatars in their Google Classrooms to increase a sense of personalized connection with their students. I think that our results could be useful in informing women’s avatar selection, especially if they are in a position where coming across as amiable could be important in their careers (or relationships with others). In regard to the Google Classroom example, it could be valuable for female teachers to use the smiling/more open avatar pose instead of the neutral/more guarded pose to increase perceived agreeableness and approachability among students. I would think that this would also apply to male teachers, but I would be interested in doing a project with both male and female avatars (and male and female participants) to examine potential gender differences.
Thank you for your comment!
This was a great topic! I found your research extremely fascinating. It’s interesting to think about the connection between the expectations we (as a society) have for women in real life and the expectations we have for their avatars as well. I think it would be interesting to see the results if a male avatar was used for male participants. I wonder if avatar appearance is something women care more about. Overall, you did a great job. Thanks for sharing!
Phenomenal job ladies!!!
You all worked so hard on your research! Congratulations on making it to the end!
Very well done! I think studies on this topic and adjacent ones will only become more and more prevalent in the coming years.